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Strelitzia Reginae Bird of Paradise Seeds

This very common landscaping species is one I get asked for all the time, particularly from my UK and European customers.

It is originally an African species and it’s incredible hardiness and very unique flowers has led to it being planted in pretty much every large park and garden right up the east coast of Australia.

Areas prone to vandalism and heavy traffic like hospitals, centrelink, job centres, roads and traffic authority buildings, and council offices very often have these guys planted in shallow concrete beds out the front, as they can handle the neglect and abuse.

The broken or missing taps and sprinklers, and the thick constantly replenished mulch of cigarette butts, doesn’t faze them in the slightest.
They just take it in their stride and still manage to look quite beautiful, flowering consistently all throughout the year.

The leaves are large, glossy, and paddle shaped, and the flowers do look very much like a bird of paradise(family Paradisaeidae), well as much as a flower can anyway..
The plants leaves are knee to waist high and the blooms appear on large flower spikes anywhere from 1-2metres high.

They suppress weeds and are very fire retardant growing into large clumps, ideal as a space filler and boundary to a garden bed.

Here at out place they are growing in dry rocky rubble, and thriving, despite the absolute lack of TLC and very harsh conditions.

Winner of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit, this fella relies on birds not insects for pollination.
When a bird lands on the flower it tilts the front bit downwards, and as they reach inside for the sweet nectar, the pollen is stamped to the birds chest.
When it goes to the next one it drops the pollen and this fertilizes the flower which later develops and forms the seeds.
Even these look super cool with the fluoro orange arils!

The seeds are easy to grow and in my experiments using the method below with both freshly harvested and 2year old seeds my results were the same giving ~70% germination.

This is how you germinate these guys.
Remove the paper label from the plastic baggie.
Fill the plastic baggie with a couple spoonfuls of fine sand and give it a bit of shake so the seeds are evenly spread out inside.
Using a sharpy or permanent marker write the date on the baggie.
Add 1 tablespoon of water, squeeze the air out and seal it.
Leave it in the refrigerator(not freezer) for a month. I leave it in the butter section of the door so I remember it’s there.
Every few days-week turn the baggie upside down to keep all areas moist and prevent stagnation.

After a month remove it from the refrigerator, plant in a nice well draining soil mix, and place your pots in a warm sunny place.

About 2 months later they should be starting to pop and once they get their 6th leaf they can be planted out in the garden and pretty much forgotten about.
In my experience they live through anything except heavy frost and daytime temps of below <12c.

If you decide to not follow my instructions and you just plant the seeds as is they will still germinate at a high %.
It could just take much longer.
Anywhere from ~2months to ~2years, so make sure you follow the instructions above if you are in a hurry….

Home grown by me and the Mrs organically, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!

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